Fan collaboration shows that an artist has matured past his insecurities

I was told in class once that inexperienced artists that don’t yet have an audience are most afraid to collaborate with fans. And true to form, during class most people, myself included, came up with consequences of collaborating with fans rather than finding any positive perspective. Since that day I have been thinking a little more about what it really means to collaborate with fans. The answer that recently struck me was that people grow a thick skin to criticism, strong conviction for their work and get past their insecurities all together. After that I began to think of all the ways an artist can collaborate with fans. I’ll only talk about two though.

For literal artists, the best solution that I could think of was creating a space where your fans can actually try to perhaps make their own interpretation of the artist’s own work. There would have to be some kind of security though so perhaps any work that is intended to go within that fan area could have some kind of watermark or signature. This idea would need some work though since most people who follow artists closely, are most likely not artists themselves; or at least not near the same level of skill.

The second is something every artist does now and then but it’s effective and so continues to propagate. Fan art is not only a way to show your fans that you at least appreciate their support but also that you look at what they comment. Often at this point of the artist’s career they are already communicating with fans so it may only add but it carries a special sentiment. What fan wouldn’t like to have something made for an artist they admire? Well, there is Alan Moore who actively resents any popularity his work may attract and hates all adaptations of his work.

That’s almost impossible though because now social media is slowly becoming the real world to some extent. Having to constantly look over your shoulder to make sure someone isn’t offended isn’t a good habit if you wanna make friends or start a family in the future

In some cases a person only has to disagree to be charged with something.

Fan collaborations have become quite rampant and though they have their own consequences the benefits are also quite alluring. I also liked the suggestion you made about fans interpreting artist’s creations , its quite a trend these days and really motivates fans.

For me it’s youtuber’s asking their subscribers for comments so that they can make a song out of interesting comments that were written. There were a couple that took negative comments and turned it into a song as well I think.